This post is a bit longer than ones I usually press, but it brought back memories of teaching.

I taught Language Arts and, as a result, poetry. I was drawn to Langston Hughes who was critical in the Harlem Renaissance, although he was not originally from New York. He was from Joplin, Missouri, found his way to Harlem, and added a wonderful voice through poetry to the Renaissance.

One of the murals in the post is of Richard Pryor who would have begun his career in the latter stages of Langston Hughes’ life. I did not think of it that way until today as I looked at the post and realized there was an overlap in their careers.

Like Hughes, Pryor was not born in New York, but moved there from Illinois. I watched Pryor on the Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1960’s, enjoying his humour and social critique.

I leave you with a Langston Hughes poem: Dreams. I shared this one with my students each year, reminding them to have dreams and chase those dreams.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

I love quotes. They make me reflect about meanings that are not clear. They raise eloquent questions that have no pat answers. They inspire me. Balroop provided three quotes that underscore these points.

Poetry is like quotes and I find many quotes from poems and poets. There are spaces between words, lines, and stanzas I can stand in and wonder.

I leave you with quotes that inspire me to think deeply and ask questions about the meaning of my life.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound…
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Yesterday, this poem by Mark Nepo found me. I was checking some emails and a site I subscribe to had this poem on it.

For the first time in 30 years, I will not teach and/or learn in formal way this fall. It crept up on me. Yes, I want to teach. I prefer that to joining a circus. In a sense, I am joining the circus. The theme of the poem is how to deal with ups and downs in life. I applied at several universities and received one interview, but came up short.

My challenge is what will we I do in lieu of teaching in some conventional way? As Nepo says, I ready to kiss anything as I hover like a mystical molecule between one stage and another. Like the dozen beginners, I am learning how to juggle and have to begin somewhere.

Each day, I focus on reading and writing and hope to publish in academic journals. A colleague suggested I write and shed a different light on teaching. As well, I may take some of my poetry and bundle it together in a book. Perhaps, my smile will be so magical I will asked to teach something I did not expect.

Wallace Stevens encapsulated the poetry’s strength. It recognizes each person’s artistry and fuels the rhythm of life. Life is a creative process. Our creations anchor us as we sense our way through life with no visible path and markers. We are adventurers in an uncharted space. No one else has lived this before or afterward. In this way, life is a work of art and takes the place of a mountain. We experience it as a deeply sensual, intimate, and creative voyage that comes from deep within our souls.

I am getting back into a groove after my first full week home. I let things flow a bit this week. Rilke suggested letting go or not contriving in this poem. When I don’t over plan, I find I am more open and accept the flow of things much like the beginner’s mind of a child. Watching children engrossed in play is a reminder that can happen for me as an adult and, as it does, the river widens and flows in every widening channels. Life becomes somehow larger, but not in an explainable way.

Posting images of our trip through Glacier National Park is believing in all that has never yet been spoken. Nature allows me to speak without using words. It is a palette of creation which speaks without speaking and shares without words. It just is and teaches through its presence.

The role of sabbath is to rest on the swelling and ebbing currents and rest in each moment. Perhaps, as I do, I take an expanded mind and soul into next week.

Several asked asked several times what I would do after the end of the school year. There is no set plan, but we spent a fair amount of time on the weekend beginning a website and some design of a logo for my next adventure. This is an opportunity to continue with several loves: learning, writing, and try make a difference, albeit a small one in the world. There is no certainty of where it takes us. Unlike the bureaucracies I tangled with my entire adult life, this is an opportunity to, as Robert Frost said, “take the road less traveled.” Where I go will not be planned out, but will be an opportunity to make a mark on the trail that others might find and follow.

I get to do this with Kathy. She is much sharper than I am when it comes to the details of a website, planning a logo, and setting the direction the first steps need to take. I get to combine a number of things I love deeply in this new adventure.

What drew me to education? I believed, and still do, I make a difference in the lives of young people entrusted to me for a year or more by their parents. It is a covenant. Yesterday, someone noticed a sticker on the classroom door. Someone had written: “Mr. P. is a good Math teacher.” A student asked if I was a good Math teacher and I responded, “No, I teach students, not subjects.” Virginia Satir described the contact teachers encourage children’s lives. We must never lose this aspect of relationship with other people, particularly children. The reciprocal nature of being is critical to humanity and humanness. The whole person emerges in the safety of these relationships.